Introducing the Queen of Pop

Taylor Swift

Joseph Anthony Baker

ALBUM REVIEWS

While we're looking at more subjective criteria like awards, let's look at the most subjective ranking of all: critical acclaim. We blended together the contenders' average album rating at Rolling Stone with their career average ratings at Metacritic, with slightly more emphasis on the former (hey, it's our survey). Here are the results; ratings are out of 200 points total.

Finally, a strong showing for Robyn! Critics love the Swedish pop doyenne, who almost tops the survey thanks to strong ratings for her 2010 Body Talk album series.

Interestingly, 32-year-old Robyn scored the earliest Top 10 singles of any woman in our survey, making the upper reaches of the Hot 100 back in 1997-98 with "Do You Know (What It Takes)" and "Show Me Love." Those were, sadly, her last U.S. Top 10s. Robyn's modest American album sales and dearth of U.S. radio play over the last decade hurt her on most of our surveys of 2009-11. We included her anyway, in general tribute to her awesomeness and our desire to make her an unofficial, lowercase queen of pop.

Robyn's 'Call Your Girlfriend' Video

There are other surprises on the critics' survey – not least the fact that the second-youngest starlet, Taylor Swift, is the most acclaimed. (On the other hand, the very youngest, Miley Cyrus, falls near the bottom.)

Shakira takes third place again, thanks in part to the four-star rating earned by her underappreciated 2009 She Wolf disc. Her outranking of Lady Gaga among critics is something of a fluke, likely brought on by the impassioned pro-and-con debate Gaga inspires.

Edging into the top five is 2011's chart goddess, Adele. Given the acclaim for her 21 album, it's a bit surprising she didn't do even better. But then, most critics reviewed the album before she became a capital-P Phenomenon.

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Song Stories

“1999”

Prince | 1982

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.

More Song Stories entries »

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